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Political and Legal Philosophy:
Political Constructivism
Optional course, Philosophy MA and Social and Political Thought MA
Spring Term 2007
Tutor: Andrew Chitty
Course Outline and Reading List
The term ‘Kantian constructivism’ was introduced by John Rawls to describe a procedure for deriving
moral, legal and political standards from the bare idea of what it is to be a person or a rational agent.
Versions of this strategy, with or without the name ‘constructivism’, can be discovered not only in
Rawls’s derivation of his principles of justice from choices made in an original position, and in Kant’s
moral philosophy, but also in O’Neill, Weinrib, Habermas, Gewirth, Scanlon and other recent political
and legal philosophers, as well as in earlier figures such as Fichte and Hegel. The course will examine
the structure and cogency of various political constructivist arguments. It will begin by briefly
examining Rousseau’s theory of political legitimacy, which is the chief precursor of the constructivist
tradition.
# = essential reading for seminar
* = recommended
+ = good introductory reading
The course webpage is at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/sefd0/crs/plp/plp.htm.
‘Bibliography’ refers to my social and political philosophy bibliography at
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/sefd0/bib/polphil.htm.
General reading
Introductions to contemporary political philosophy:
* Wolff, J. (1996) An Introduction to Political Philosophy
Knowles, D. (1998) Political Philosophy
Swift, A. (2001) Political Philosophy: A Beginner’s Guide for Students and Politicians
Christman, J. (2002) Social and Political Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction
Constructivism in contemporary political philosophy:
McKinnon, C. (2002) Liberalism and the Defence of Political Constructivism
Roberts, P. (2006) Political Constructivism
Bibliography: section on ‘Constructivism in political philosophy’
1. Introduction
2. Kant’s philosophy of right
Kant is far and away the most important historical figure for central figure for contemporary political
constructivism, and most constructivists combine their views with a particular interpretation of Kant’s
moral philosophy and philosophy of right. In this session we will concentrate on his argument for the
second formula of the basic moral imperative, the categorical imperative: that we should treat others as
ends rather than means, and on a close reading of the key parts of his philosophy of right, or
philosophy of law.
Questions: Why should we treat others as ends rather than means? What does Kant mean by Right
(Recht)? Is his principle of Right based on the categorical imperative, and if so how? What is the
basic difference between private and public right (private and public law) for Kant?
# Kant, I. [1784] ‘What is enlightenment?’ in H. Reiss. ed. Kant: Political Writings, or T. Humphrey
ed. Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, also available online at http://www.fordham.edu
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# Kant, I. [1785] Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals trans. M. Gregor, 1998 or ed. L. Denis
2005, or as Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. L.W. Beck, 1959, or as The Moral
Law, trans. H.J. Paton, 1948, part 2, Prussian Academy pagination pp. 426-448 and (the argument
that every rational agent must treat every other as an end in him/herself)
# Kant, I. [1797] The Metaphysics of Morals trans. M. Gregor, 1991 (recommended translation),
Doctrine of Right: ‘Introduction to Doctrine of Right’ and §1-9, 36, 41-49, 49 remark A, 52, 62,
Conclusion
# Pippin, R. (1991) Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, pp. 1-15, 46-61 (supplied)
The second and third texts above are also available in older translations online via the ‘Kant on the
Web’ site at http://www.hkbu.edu.hk or in ‘Philosophy Texts at Sussex’ via
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/library/electronic (NB ‘Doctrine of Right is sometimes translated as
‘Science of Right’).
Introductions to Kant’s ethics:
Schneewind, J.B. (1992) ‘Autonomy, obligation and virtue: an overview of Kant’s moral
philosophy’, in P. Guyer ed. The Cambridge Companion to Kant
Korsgaard, C. (1998) ‘Introduction’ to Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. M. Gregor
Walker, R.C.S. (1998) Kant: Kant and the Moral Law, The Great Philosophers (a very short book)
Guyer, P. (1998) ‘Introduction’ to Guyer, P. ed. Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals:
Critical Essays
Introductions to Kant’s political and legal philosophy:
Reiss, H. (1970) ‘Introduction’ to Reiss ed. Kant’s Political Writings, secs. 4-6
Riley, P. (1986) ‘The “elements” of Kant’s political philosophy’, Political Theory 14:4
Sullivan, R.J. (1989) Immanuel Kant’s Moral Theory, chs. 16-17
Kersting, W. (1992) ‘Politics, freedom and order: Kant’s political philosophy’ in P. Guyer ed. The
Cambridge Companion to Kant
On the foundations of the principle of right:
Riley, P. (1982) Will and Political Legitimacy, ch. on Kant
Taylor, C. (1984) ‘Kant’s theory of freedom’ in Z.A. Pelczynski and J. Gray eds. Conceptions of
Liberty in Political Philosophy, reprinted in Taylor’s Philosophy and the Human Sciences:
Philosophical Papers Volume 2, 1985
Pippin, R.B. (1985) ‘On the moral foundations of Kant’s Rechtslehre’ in R. Kennington ed. The
Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, reprinted in Pippin’s Idealism as Modernism
Further sources:
Mulholland, L.A. (1989) Kant’s System of Rights
Flikschuh, K. (2000) Kant and Modern Political Philosophy
Bibliography: sections on ‘Kant’s political philosophy: introductions’, ‘Kant as constructivist in
ethics’, ‘Kant as constructivist in political philosophy’, ‘Kant on right and morality’
3. Rawls’s constructivism
John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice argues that a social structure is just if it conforms to the two
‘principles of justice’ that people would choose if they had to choose between different possible
principles to govern their society from an ‘original position’ that is behind a ‘veil of ignorance’, i.e.
from a position in which they did not anything about their personal characteristics or abilities. Rawls
went on to develop the idea that the original position procedure is a way of modelling a Kantian
conception of persons as free and equal, so that ultimately the principles of justice are ‘constructed’
from this conception of a person. He also said that this conception of the person is not necessarily a
true one, just one that is part of an ‘overlapping consensus’ that members of modern democratic
societies share for political purposes. Here we will focus on the idea of constructivism in Rawls’s
theory.
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Questions: What does Rawls mean by saying that persons are free and equal? How does he think the
original position models this conception of the person? What does he mean by calling this conception
a ‘political’ one?
# Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice, or 2nd ed. 1999, secs. 1-4, 11, 40
# Rawls, J. (1980) ‘Kantian constructivism in moral theory’ (The Dewey Lectures), Journal of
Philosophy 77:9, reprinted in Rawls’s Collected Papers, lecture 3, which is revised as lecture 3,
‘Political constructivism’ in Rawls’s Political Liberalism 1993
# Rawls, J. (1985) ‘Justice as fairness: political not metaphysical’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 14,
revised as lecture 1, secs. 1-5 of Rawls’s Political Liberalism 1993
Additional text:
Rawls, J. (1989) ‘The domain of the political and overlapping consensus’, New York University Law
Review 64, reprinted in Rawls’s Collected Papers, in R.E. Goodin and P. Pettit eds. Contemporary
Political Philosophy: An Anthology, and in D. Matravers and J. Pike eds. Debates in Contemporary
Political Philosophy
Introductions to Rawls:
Campbell, T. (1988) Justice, ch. 3
* Kukathas, C. and Pettit, P. (1990) John Rawls: A Theory of Justice and its Critics, chs. 1-4, 7
Mulhall, S. and Swift, A. (1992) Liberals and Communitarians, or 2nd ed. 1996, ‘Introduction’ pp. 1-9
Kolm, S.-C. (1995) ‘Distributive justice’ in Goodin and Pettit eds. A Companion to Contemporary
Political Philosophy
On Rawls’s constructivism:
Doppelt, G. (1988) ‘Rawls’ Kantian ideal and the viability of modern liberalism’, Inquiry 31
+ Arneson, R.J. (1989) ‘Introduction’ to symposium on Rawlsian theory of justice, Ethics 99
+ Kymlicka, W. (2002) Contemporary Political Philosophy¸ 2nd ed., ch. 6 sec. 7 ‘Political liberalism’
Rawls and Kant:
Rawls, J. (1989) ‘Themes in Kant’s moral philosophy’, in E. Förster ed. Kant’s Transcendental
Deductions, reprinted in Rawls’s Collected Papers
Krasnoff, L. (1999) ‘How Kantian is constructivism?’, Kant-Studien 90:4
Rawls, J. (2000) Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, section on Kant
Gillroy, J.M. (2000) ‘Making public choices: Kant’s “justice from autonomy” as an alternative to
Rawls’ “justice as fairness”‘, Kant-Studien 91:1
Bibliography: ‘Rawls’s constructivism’, ‘Rawls’s constructivism: communitarian and pragmatist
responses’ and ‘Rawls and Kant’
4. O’Neill’s constructivism
In a series of articles since the 1980s Onora O’Neill has put forward an alternative version of political
constructivism which she argues is much closer to Kant’s original ideas than Rawls’s is. The essential
idea is that laws are acceptable only if they are such that everyone could consent to them without
undermining their own status as willing agents.
Questions: Is O’Neill’s constructivism based on a certain conception of the person? What is the
essential difference between O’Neill’s constructivism and Rawls’s? What difference does it make to
the evaluation of actual laws and state actions whether we follow O’Neill or Rawls?
# O’Neill, O. (1988-89) ‘Constructivisms in ethics’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 89, also in
O’Neill’s Constructions of Reason 1989
# O’Neill, O. (2000) ‘Kant and the social contract tradition’ in F. Duchesneau et al eds. Kant Actuel:
Hommage a Pierre Laberge
# O’Neill, O. (2002) ‘Constructivism in Rawls and Kant’, in S. Freeman ed. The Cambridge
Companion to Rawls
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Additional text:
Kant, I. [1793] ‘Theory and practice’ (full title: ‘On the common saying “This may be true in theory
but it does not apply in practice”‘, in H. Reiss. ed. Kant: Political Writings 1970/1990, or in T.
Humphrey ed. Perpetual Peace and Other Essays 1983) part 2 ‘Against Hobbes’
More by O’Neill:
O’Neill, O. (1996) Toward Justice and Virtue
O’Neill, O. (1997) ‘Political liberalism and public reason: a critical notice of John Rawls, Political
Liberalism’, Philosophical Review 106:3
O’Neill, O. (2003) ‘Constructivism vs. contractualism’, Ratio 16: 4
O’Neill, O. (2004) ‘Autonomy, plurality and public reason’, in N. Brender and L. Krasnoff eds. New
Essays on the History of Autonomy
Commentary:
Hill, T.E. (2001) ‘Hypothetical consent in Kantian constructivism’, Social Philosophy and Policy 18:2
Riley, P. (2003) ‘Review essay of O’Neill and Flikschuh’, Political Theory 31:2
Bibliography: section on ‘O’Neill’s constructivism’
5. Gewirth’s constructivism
Again drawing on Kant, Alan Gewirth in his book Reason and Morality developed an argument to the
effect that as a rational agent I cannot but demand that others treat me as having certain rights, and to
be logically consistent I must therefore, on the same grounds, treat all other rational agents as having
those same rights. So he derives the idea of natural rights from the bare idea of rational agency and
therefore clearly belongs to the constructivist tradition.
Questions: Is Gewirth right that any rational agent must claim rights to freedom and well-being? Is he
right that any rational agent must respect the claims of other rational agents to freedom and wellbeing?
# Gewirth, A. (1988) ‘The justification of morality’, Philosophical Studies 53
and one of the following:
# Gewirth, A. (1982) Human Rights, pp. 45-52
# Gewirth, A. (1984) ‘Replies to my critics’, in E. Regis Jr. ed. Gewirth’s Ethical Rationalism¸ see pp.
203-210
Gewirth, A. (1978) Reason and Morality, chs. 1-3 (full statement of his argument)
Gewirth, A. (1982) ‘On rational agency as the basis of moral equality: reply to Ben-Zeev’, Canadian
Journal of Philosophy 12
Commentary:
+ Lomasky, L. (1984) ‘Personal projects as the foundation for basic rights’, Social Philosophy and
Policy 1, reprinted in E.F. Paul et al. ed. Human Rights 1984
Scheuermann, J. (1987) ‘Gewirth’s concept of prudential rights’, Philosophical Quarterly 37
+ Beyleveld, D. (1991) The Dialectical Necessity of Morality, pp. 13-21
Chitty, A. (2006) ‘Protagonist and subject in Gewirth’s ethical rationalism’ (unpublished MS,
available on request)
Gewirth and political and legal philosophy
Beyleveld, D. and Brownsword, R. (1986) Law as a Moral Judgement
Gewirth, A. (1996) The Community of Rights
Further sources:
Regis E. Jr. ed. (1984) Gewirth’s Ethical Rationalism
Boylan, M. ed. (1999) Gewirth: Critical Essays on Action, Rationality, and Community
Bibliography: section on ‘Gewirth’
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6. Kantian theory of private law: Weinrib
The legal scholar Ernest Weinrib, has developed a theory of private law (the law of property, contract,
and tort) based on Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. Weinrib argues that private law as a body of legal
practices is best understood as making explicit the ideas of personhood articulated by Kant. Weinrib
does not call his theory constructivist since his aim is to discover the normative principles which are
immanent in private law rather than to derive private law as it should be from those principles, but it
has a close relationship with the views we have already discussed.
Questions: What does Weinrib mean by calling himself a ‘legal formalist’? Is the idea of personhood
which he identifies as central to private law the same as Rawls’s and O’Neill’s? Is he committed to the
objective truth of this notion of personhood? How can Weinrib’s theory provide a basis for criticising
the particular decisions of judges in private law cases?
# Weinrib, E.J. (1995) The Idea of Private Law, chs. 1, 4
On Weinrib:
Patterson, D. (1996) Law and Truth, chapter on Weinrib
Rosenfeld, M. (1998) Just Interpretations: Law between Ethics and Politics, section on Weinrib
Zipurksy, B. (2002) ‘Philosophy of private law’, in J. Coleman and S. Shapiro eds. The Oxford
Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law (see section 2: ‘Leading theoretical models of
private law’)
Introductions to the philosophy of law:
* Harris, J. (1980) Legal Philosophies, or 2nd ed. 1997
Murphy, J.G. and Coleman J.L. eds. (1990) Philosophy of Law: An Introduction to Jurisprudence
Wacks, R. (1995) Jurisprudence, 4th ed.
Bibliography: section on ‘Constructivist accounts of private law’
7. Habermas on the normative foundations of law and democracy
In the 1980s Jürgen Habermas drew on ideas in Kant to develop a theory of ‘discourse ethics’, according
to which there are certain ethical principles embedded in the bare idea of communication as such, so that
we are, as it were, committed to these principles just by talking to each other. He went on to apply this
approach to law, the state and democracy. We will focus on the theory of law and democracy in his
Between Facts and Norms.
Questions: What according to Habermas is the idea of popular sovereignty? What is the idea of human
rights? How do these ideas relate to one another? According to Habermas does liberal democracy
succeed in uniting them in practice? If so how? Questions: How is Habermas’s theory of law
‘reconstructivist’? Does he provide clear criteria for what kinds of laws are acceptable and what are not?
How are those criteria different in practice from others looked at so far in this course?
# Cahn, S.M. ed. Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts, pp. 524-541
And one of the following:
# Baynes, K. (1995) ‘Democracy and the “Rechtsstaat”: Habermas’s “Faktizität und Geltung”’, in S.K.
White ed. The Cambridge Companion to Habermas
# Scheuerman, W.E. (1998) ‘Between radicalism and resignation: democratic theory in Habermas’s
Between Facts and Norms’ in P. Dews ed. Habermas: A Critical Reader
# Olson, K. (2003) ‘Do rights have a formal basis? Habermas’ legal theory and the normative
foundations of the law’, Journal of Political Philosophy 11:3
Habermas, J. [1992] Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and
Democracy, ch. 3 (esp. from 3.1.2 onwards)
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+Outhwaite, W. (1994) Habermas: A Critical Introduction, chs. 3 ‘Communication and discourse
ethics’ and ch. 9 ‘Law and the state’
+Finlayson, G. (2005) Habermas: A Very Short Introduction, chs. 6-8
Habermas on law and democracy:
Habermas, J. (1988) ‘Law and morality’, Tanner Lectures on Human Values 8
O’Neill , O. (1994) ‘Practical reason and possible community: a reply to Jean-Marc Ferry’, Ratio Juris 7:3
Peters, B. (1994) ‘On reconstructive legal and political theory, Philosophy and Social Criticism 20:4
Baynes, K. (1995) ‘Democracy and the “Rechtsstaat”: Habermas’s “Faktizität und Geltung”‘, in S.K.
White ed. The Cambridge Companion to Habermas
Habermas’s discourse ethics:
Habermas, J. [1982] ‘Discourse ethics: notes on philosophical justification’, in S. Benhabib and F.
Dallmayr eds. The Communicative Ethics Controversy 1990, also in Habermas’ Moral
Consciousness and Communicative Action 1990
Habermas, J. [1991] ‘Remarks on discourse ethics’, in Justification and Application: Remarks on
Discourse Ethics, tr. 1993
Habermas’s critique of Rawls:
Rawls (1993) Political Liberalism, lecture 4 §1-5, lecture 6 §1-4
Habermas, J. (1995) ‘Reconciliation through the public use of reason: remarks on John Rawls’
Political Liberalism’, Journal of Philosophy 92:33
Rawls, J. (1995) ‘Reply to Habermas’s “Reconciliation through the public use of reason”‘, Journal of
Philosophy 92:3, reprinted as ‘Political Liberalism: a debate with John Rawls’, in Habermas’s The
Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory 1999
McCarthy, T. (1994) ‘Kantian constructivism and reconstructivism: Rawls and Habermas in dialog’,
Ethics 105:1
Bibliography: sections on ‘Habermas on law’ and ‘Habermas and Rawls’
8. Constructivism in Hegel
Hegel is often thought of as saying that the ultimate justifications for laws and political institutions can
only refer to the shared values of a given society at a particular time in history, and cannot be grounded
on any transhistorical foundation. But in his Philosophy of Right he explicitly attempts to show how all
the spheres of modern Right (law) are realisations of the bare idea of the free will, in one way or
another. We will first look at two essays by Fichte and Schelling which both sketch versions of
constructivism, and which undoubtedly influenced Hegel. We will then trace Hegel’s construction of
private property as the basic principle of Abstract Right (his term for private law) from the idea of free
will in the first version of his Philosophy of Right.
Questions: Why does Hegel think that a genuinely free will must will the free will itself? What does it
mean to will your own free will? How does he derive property rights from the will that wills its own
freedom?
# Fichte, J.G. [1794] Lectures 1-2 of ‘Some lectures concerning the scholar’s vocation’, in Fichte:
Early Philosophical Writings, tr. D. Breazeale 1988
# Hegel, G. [1817-8] Lectures on Natural Right and Political Science, tr. J.M. Stewart and P.C. Hodgson,
§§1-16 (together with the lecture notes at pp. 319-331), 17-32, 123
Additional texts:
Hegel, G. [1817] Philosophy of Spirit, §§430-436 (in M. Petry ed. Hegel’s Philosophy of Subjective
Spirit vol. 3, or M. Petry ed. The Berlin Phenomenology, or Findlay ed. Hegel’s Philosophy of
Mind) (on the master-servant relation and mutual recognition)
Hegel, G. [1821] Elements of the Philosophy of Right, §§1-71, 260 (covers the same material as the
third reading above, but in a much more elaborate form)
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+ Chitty, A. (2006) ‘Fichte’s deduction of right from mutual recognition’, via
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/sefd0/crs/hgb/hgb.htm
Commentary:
Riley, P. (1982) Will and Political Legitimacy, chapter on Hegel
Wood, A. (1990) Hegel’s Ethical Thought, chs. 2, 4, 5
Knowles, D. (2002) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel and the Philosophy of Right, chs. 2-4
On free will as the basis of right in general:
Maletz, D.J. (1989) ‘Hegel on right as actualised will’, Political Theory 17
Patten, A. (1999) Hegel’s Idea of Freedom, ch. 2 secs. 1-3
Westphal, K.R. (2002) ‘Hegel’s normative constructivism’ (unpublished MS, copy supplied)
On free will as the basis of property:
Weinrib, E.J. (1991) ‘Right and advantage in private law’, in D. Cornell et al. eds. Hegel and Legal
Theory
Benson, P. (1991) ‘The priority of abstract right and constructivism in Hegel’s legal philosophy’, in
D. Cornell et al. eds. Hegel and Legal Theory
Patten, A. (1995) ‘Hegel’s justification of private property’, History of Political Thought 16:4,
revised as ch. 5 of his Hegel’s Idea of Freedom
‘A Hegel bibliography’ at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/sefd0/bib/hegel.htm: sections on ‘Freedom in
Hegel’s political philosophy, Hegel as a constructivist’ and ‘Property and contract: Hegel’s justification’
9. Critiques of constructivism
In this session we will look at three representative critiques of the idea of deriving legal principles
from the idea of the agent or the will as such: Marxist, communitarian and naturalist. Pashukanis
argues that the system of private law, and the concept of the self as a pure chooser that is associated
with it, both arise out of a market economy of private property owners. The implication is that this
concept of the self cannot be used to provide a philosophical justification of property or private law.
Michael Sandel argues that the concept of the self as a pure chooser on which Rawls relies is
unrealistic since every individual is in fact already steeped in the values of their particular society. This
critique applies implicitly to the whole constructivist tradition. John Gray argues that the very idea of
human beings as free agents fundamentally distinct from other animals is simply a long-standing
illusion of Western religion and philosophy. This seems to radically undercut the ground from any
political constructivism.
Questions: Can political constructivism provide a basis for justifying a legal order if it is based on a
conception of the self that is (a) produced or (b) reinforced by that same order? How should a political
constructivist respond to Sandel’s critique of Rawls? Is political constructivism destroyed by the
acknowledgment that humans are animals?
# Pashukanis, E.V. [1929] Law and Marxism, ch. 3 ‘Norm and relation’, ch. 4 ‘Commodity and subject’
# Sandel, M.J. (1982) Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, or 2nd ed. 1988, introduction, ch. 1,
conclusion (see also chs. 2-3)
# Gray, J. (2002) Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, Granta, pp. 37-52
Marxist critiques of constructivism:
Marx, K. [1867] Capital, vol. 1, ch. 2, first paragraph (and footnote on Proudhon)
Marcuse, H. [1936] ‘A study on authority, part 3: Kant’, in his Studies in Critical Philosophy (also
published as From Luther to Popper)
Marcuse, H. (1941) Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory, 2nd ed., Routledge
and Kegan Paul, pp. 183-196
Sayer, D. (1991) Capitalism and Modernity: An Excursus on Marx and Weber, ch. 2 ‘Power and the
subject’, section 1
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Bibliography: section on ‘Marxist critiques of constructivism and humanism’
The communitarian critique of Rawls (and of constructivism in general):
Gutmann, A. (1985) ‘Communitarian critics of liberalism’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 14
Kymlicka, W. (1989) Liberalism, Community and Culture, ch. 4 ‘Communitarianism and the self’
+ Kukathas, C. and Pettit, P. (1990) Rawls, ch. 7
+ Mulhall, S. and Swift, A. (1992) Liberals and Communitarians: An Introduction, 2nd ed. 1996,
Introduction, chs. 5, 6
Bibliography: sections on ‘Rawls’s constructivism: communitarian and pragmatist responses’,
‘Liberal responses to communitarianism’ and ‘Further developments in the liberal/communitarian
debate’
Supplement: Justifiability to citizens
Alongside the idea that principles of justice must be derivable from an original position that models
the idea of persons as free and equal, Rawls also argued that they must be ‘justifiable’ to all citizens,
i.e. that it must be possible to give acceptable reasons for them to every citizen. The idea of
justifiability to citizens as a criterion for laws and state policies is another strand in contemporary
constructivism, developed also by Jeremy Waldron and Tim Scanlon.
Waldron, J. (1987) ‘Theoretical foundations of liberalism’, Philosophical Quarterly 37:147
Scanlon, T.M. (1982) ‘Contractualism and utilitarianism’, in Sen and Williams eds. Utilitarianism
and Beyond
+ D’Agostino, F. (2003) ‘Public justification’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, at
http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk
Rawls on justifiability:
Rawls, J. (1993) Political Liberalism, pp. 136-7, 225-6 (on the ‘liberal principle of legitimacy’)
Gaut, B. (1995) ‘Rawls and the claims of liberal legitimacy’, Philosophical Papers 24:1
Scanlon, T.M. (2003) ‘Rawls on justification’, in S. Freeman ed. The Cambridge Companion to
Rawls (see section 3)
Scanlon on justifiability:
Scanlon, T.M. (1999) What We Owe to Each Other, Introduction, ch. 5 ‘The structure of
contractualism’
+ Scanlon, T. (2003) ‘Contractualism and what we owe to each other’ in H. Pauer-Studer ed.
Constructions of Practical Reason: Interviews on Moral and Political Philosophy (interview with
Scanlon on his work)
Commentary on Scanlon:
Kreide, R. (2000) ‘Context-sensitive universalism: on Thomas Scanlon’s “What We Owe to Each
Other”’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 26:5
Ridge, M. (2001) ‘Saving Scanlon: contractualism and agent-relativity’, Journal of Political
Philosophy 9:4
Adams, R.M. (2001) ‘Scanlon’s contractualism’ Philosophical Review 110:4
Dworkin, G. (2002) ‘Contractualism and the normativity of principles’, Ethics 112:3
O’Neill, O. (2003) ‘Constructivism vs. contractualism’, Ratio 16: 4
Parfit, D. (2003) ‘Justifiability to each person’, Ratio 16:4
Further sources:
Gaus, G.F. (1996) Justificatory Liberalism
Matravers, M. ed. (2003) Scanlon and Contractualism
AC 11 January 2007
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